In the field of musical instruments a tremolo is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “a wavering effect in a musical tone, typically produced by rapid reiteration of a note, or sometimes by rapid repeated variation in the pitch of a note or by sounding two notes of slightly different pitches to produce prominent overtones. Compare with vibrato.” Guitars, in particular electric guitars use a tremolo arm or bar which is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “[a] lever on an electric guitar producing a tremolo,” while other known definitions include “[a] mechanism in an organ producing a tremolo.”
Tremolo (also called a “whammy”) bar can be found on certain types of guitars (e.g., electric guitars) and are generally used, at least in part, to change the pitch of sounds produced by such guitars. Typically, tremolo bars are attached to a bridge section of a guitar (comprising a bridge assembly that anchors strings to the body of the guitar) and are capable of pivoting in a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction with respect to the body of the guitar and capable of being pushed towards the body of the guitar using a grip known as a whammy or tremelo bar. In one application, the pitch of sounds produced by the guitar can be changed by applying a force to the tremolo bar in a direction away from the body of the guitar (e.g., for Stratocaster® style guitars having a “floating bridge” arrangement). In another application, the pitch can be changed by applying a force to the tremolo bar in a direction towards the body of the guitar (e.g., for Stratocaster® and Bigsby® style guitars). Conventionally, in order to access and use the tremolo bar, a user may need to switch positions of his or her hands from the strings of the guitar to the tremolo bar, which can result in undesirable interrupted play.
It is desirable to provide an assembly (or improved tremolo bar) that is capable of taking advantage of the position of a user's body (hand, wrist, or otherwise) with respect a guitar such that the user does not need to switch positions of his or her hands from the strings of the guitar to the assembly, thereby providing an improvement over the whammy bar found on many electric guitars.
Also tremolo bars are typically found on guitars but are not always on other instruments, especially larger instruments such as bass instruments, pianos or instruments requiring more difficult hand positioning such as violins, fiddles, lap steels, harpsicords or autoharps.
In another aspect stringed instruments having a neck for providing frets such as guitars, violins, fiddles, cellos, basses, banjos allow for different notes to be played when a musician presses a string against a desired fret causing a different sound or note to be emitted from the string when it is played. One problem that can occur is that the amount of pressure that has to be applied to a string to hold it against the fret can be quite high and difficult for some users having physical limitations such as poor muscle strength in their hands, arthritis, smaller or missing fingers etc. It is therefore desirable to provide a stringed instrument where the neck is adjustable to position the strings closer to the frets on the neck depending on the musician's physical requirements or playing style.
In a final aspect stringed instruments such as guitars, violins, fiddles, cellos, basses, banjos, pianos, harps harpsicords or autoharps and the like typically have a hollow body that is made of wood or similar fibrous material that serves as a sound amplifier. Harder housing materials such as metal are not used because they are too difficult to achieve the desired tuning or amplification to be used. The present invention provides a metal housing for a stringed instrument that includes an independent adjustment that achieves desirable tuning and amplification.